Henry Schulman is reporting that the Giants have traded RHP Tim Alderson (the #4 Giants prospect by BA before this season started) for Pirates 2B Freddy Sanchez. Salary details are a little sketchy, but for what the Pirates are getting in Alderson they’ll probably be kicking in the rest of Freddy’s 2008 salary.*
*Looks like I was wrong on that one. Ugh.
What The Giants Get
An immediate upgrade at second base. Sanchez owns a career .328 wOBA while playing above-average defense. In 3,700+ career innings at 2B Sanchez has rated around +5 runs per 150 games fielded. Sanchez’s game is based around making contact. His career Contact% of 87.4 indicates as such. Nearly 25% of Sanchez’s balls hit into play for his career have been of the line drive variety. He doesn’t walk a whole lot (BB% of 4.8) and he doesn’t K much either (K% of 11.4).
ZiPS’ rest-of-season projections peg Sanchez as a .327 wOBA hitter for the remainder of this season.
What The Giants Lose
A Top-5 prospect in a deep farm system. The 20-year-old Alderson projects as a mid-rotation starter with solid control, a plus-curve, and a developing changeup. After being drafted in the 2007 First Year Player Draft, the Giants threw Alderson straight into the fire to start his first full minor league season. In 2008, the Giants started Alderson off as a 19-year-old in the California League. Alderson responded to the challenge by posting a 2.64 FIP in 145 innings pitched. If that doesn’t speak to Alderson’s polish, I don’t know what does.
Alderson’s K totals have been slightly down this year in AA but he’s still very young for his level and a top prospect. Some people will debate what Alderson’s true ceiling his, but as a young player that’s been aggressively promoted, he’s held his own at each level. The Pirates are getting a very good player in this deal.
Quick Thoughts
At first glance, I think it’s a steep price to pay for Sanchez. Injury issues aside, he’s a quality player that’s been worth between 3-4 wins these past four years. In the matter of the last few days the Giants have traded away two Top-10 pitching prospects from their system. Outside of Madison Bumgarner and Zack Wheeler (who is still unsigned), the Giants probably don’t have another pitcher in their Top-10.
The difference between Sanchez and Juan Uribe over the remainder of the season probably varies between 0.5 – 1 win(s). The Giants fix a major hole on their team and do improve themselves. But I’m not sure I like the price that they paid.
Tentatively, I’d call this a Pirates win. Welcome to the team, Freddy.
You called it–too high a price. I could live with Garko even though he came at a high price, too. Garko is younger and under our control longer and gives us what we need, a guy with some pop. We should have gotten more for Alderson–Sanchez isn’t enough.
Not just too high a price. A preposterous price.
Ryan Garko would have the most value if we used him as a platoon partner for Ishikawa. Against RH pitching, he and Ishi are pretty well even, and Ishi’s a better defensive first baseman. But the great imponderable is Jesus Guzman. Given his success in AAA, and given his success in Winter league, there’s every reason to suppose that he’d give us everything Garko gives us. And more, frankly, because Bruce Bochy will certainly play Garko every day, at least for awhile, and probably would be more inclined to platoon Guzman. So we gave up Scott Barnes, for what? Because Guzman didn’t hit much in 20 PA.
Now we get Freddy Sanchez. And granted, second base has been a black hole. But again, didn’t we have a much cheaper, and quite possibly better minor league alternative? I understand the reluctance to turn over second base to Brock Bond, but we’re talking about a .450 OBP in a good pitcher’s park in AA. Wouldn’t it make much more sense to see what he can do before trading someone with the potential upside of Tim Alderson?
I’m sure Sabean feels pressure to make the deal because we’re in a pennant race and he’s fighting to keep his job. And on the surface, the deal makes sense; we got a quality major league second baseman, and all we gave up was some minor league pitching depth.
But the reality is, we’re not really in a pennant race, not really. We’re one of eight teams fighting for the wild card, and we still have the worst offense of those teams. Freddy Sanchez has value, but most of it tied up in his batting average. We never really gave Kevin Frandsen a chance to establish himself. Maybe he wouldn’t have; we never let him compete for the job. We never really let Downs compete. Probably he wouldn’t have made it; we gave him a week. We never gave Bond a chance at all. Maybe he’s nothing special defensively; he’s certainly a poor baserunner. Still, we never let him compete for the job, despite some evidence that he would be terrific.
In short, we gave up way too much, for not nearly enough. One hates to invoke the name of A. J. Pierzynski, but this could potentially turn out to be a trade nearly as bad as that one was.
Keith Law says its not so bad a deal, as Alderson is not quite the prospect he used to be. He calls it a not unreasonable trade…
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=4365281&name=law_keith
Well..I DO tend to obey the KLAW.
Blarg.
One more poteneial advantage to the trade. Renteria has a bum elbow. Now Uribe will be freed up to give hime more time off. Rest might help him, and less Renteria will help us.
I like the theory that KLaw (and tedfordfan) have put forward, but I’m not sure the Giants will actually give Renteria more time off unless they are really forced to. I don’t know, theoretically it sounds OK but I’m not sure I like the idea (defensively) of Uribe getting innings at SS.
It’s not a terrible idea, though.
At this point, I just hope Sanchez is healthy.
Now that I have bit of time to think on this trade I still hate it. I feel Sabean is betting with a chunk of the rent money for the 2011 and on seasons. It also magnifies the stakes of the Garko trade all out of proportion.
But the thought that occurrs to me – Is this the move the makes or breaks Sabean’s contract extension? If Sanchez is merrily “meh” it is a loss of a trade. If Sanchez is not even able to be a 2.5-3 WAR player over his current contract how does this not go down has another Hillenbrand type trade? And as such against what The Bow Tie was talking up as his Giants’ way?